May we assign a cause?
—who cannot be content
with a cruel pattern of stars,
Venus shivering under the Scorpion’s tail,
Saturn’s black frost poisoning the sun…
Put it as you will,
the christening-sisters meant
to give her, if not all,
much—looks, a quick mind,
a feeling heart, and one
thing which doubles those,
the gift which makes them known,
felt. But the figure on the other side,
rejected, black, said
“These she shall have. But they shall be no use.”
Dress it how you may;
in plain words, what no one gave
this child was love. Without love
all those happy things are mockery.
She had to spoil herself, and spoiled die.